


your choices can silence their voices

by embersandempires



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Better Living Industries, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, mention of suicide, no beta we die like the four, non-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29090550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embersandempires/pseuds/embersandempires
Summary: the four don’t die rescuing the girl, but they don’t get out either. better living industries has better plans for them.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	your choices can silence their voices

when poison comes to, they can see black heels in front of them. they lift their head, coming face to face with the director.

“it’s a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, party poison.” her voice reverberates as poison blinks themselves awake, not even bothering to try and struggle. they know their hands are tied, they’re not gonna give her the satisfaction of pulling and potentially dislocating their own wrists like last time. 

“yeah, when you’re not giving orders to shoot at me.” poison retorts, shaking red hair from their eyes. 

“i must say, i’m impressed by your team. we had to go to extraordinary lengths to deescalate you all last week.” she says. poison’s memory is fuzzy, but they do remember the shootout. 

“last week? how long have i been out for?” they ask. the memories are coming back slowly: the girl being captured, them storming the lab to rescue her, getting shot by korse. 

“six days. we fixed you and your crew up. figured it’d be no fun trying to negotiate with a dead body.” the director says, and poison peers down at themselves. there’s a part of their blue pegasus jacket that’s saturated with dried blood, the fabric cut slightly to allow placement of stark white bandages, also covered in dried blood. when they put their head down, they can feel the beginnings of a scab from where korse shot them in the jaw. 

“are they okay?” poison asks gruffly when they look up from their wounds. 

“your crew? they’re alive.” the director nods. they wonder how her bangs don’t fall in her face all the time. _oh right, it’s battery city, where everything and everyone is perfect._

“where is she?” their second question is fast and gives them away with a slight shake in their voice. the director chuckles. 

“the little girl, yes. she was saved by your rebel friends.” she says, and poison has to hold in their sigh of relief. they did it. they saved her. 

“your crew had a rough past, hm?” the director continues like it’s nothing, like she’s making small talk. “let’s see. jet, we wiped out both of his parents in one attack. impressive, right? i love rooting for underdogs though, props to the patrol for leaving little jet. who knew he’d be such a disaster when he grew up?” 

poison almost pipes up to dispute with her, because jet’s the most put together out of all of them, but she starts talking again before he gets the chance. 

“poor, fatherless ghoul. his mother dying just for her sons to become criminals. how disappointing. ghoul was actually one of our best guinea pigs we’ve had in the testing facilities. he helped make the city safer by braving all those side effects.” she says, and poison tries to block her out by looking around. it’s a plain, padded cell with a television screen in the top left corner. it’s got the bli logo on it right now, not playing any brainwashing media. 

“and of course we can’t forget about the kobra kid. no one’s figured out you’re not really siblings, is that so? you live up to your name, you poisoned what could’ve been the future of bli by feeding the boy your rebel fantasies. that boy was brighter than any battery city youth we’ve ever seen, only to be stolen from opportunity by your selfishness.” her voice turns bitter. 

“you don’t deserve him.” poison rebukes, knowing they’re playing with fire, but it doesn’t matter. 

“and you think you do? when you let his brilliant mind rot away in the walls of that orphanage?” 

“we were just kids!” poison’s voice shakes again. 

“you still are kids. kids playing superheroes.” she deadpans. 

“we’re better than you, you piece of sh-“ 

“please. you’re just a gang of orphans with a god complex.” 

“fuck you.” poison spits, trying, for the love of witch, to stop the tremble in their tone. 

“and last but not least, you. party poison, child of the most accomplished scarecrow in history. it must’ve been hard, going from the life of luxury to spending all your childhood rotting in that lobby orphanage. all because your mother had this idea of freedom over safety.” 

“don’t talk about my mother!” they’ve abandoned all hope of leveling their voice, and it scratches in their throat like a curse. 

“calm down, poison.” the director smiles. 

“let me see them. now.” poison does an awkward little hop on the chair they’re tied to, jostling the rope around their wrists. it doesn’t give, just further ingrains the strands into their already-chafed skin. 

“no can do. we’ve already began some therapy to help your crew adjust to their fate. i’m sure you’ll all make fantastic citizens, this is just the rehabilitation procedure.” the director puts what’s supposed to be a comforting hand on poison’s shoulder, and they can’t rear back enough to bite her. 

“normally, we don’t have the mercy or the time to fix rebels like you, but you four present a unique opportunity. to show all your friends out in the desert that not even the strongest rebels can protect themselves from better living’s mission.” she says, gesturing vaguely with her hand. 

“which is?” poison asks, rolling their eyes. 

“clean the world, get rid of the scum. although i can’t let you interact with them right now, i think you’d be interested in seeing what your crewmates are up to.” she pulls a remote from the pocket of her blazer, and aims it at the television screen. it comes alive with a security camera menu, and she makes a “hmm” noise before picking one of the cameras. 

it shows a cell identical to the one her and poison are in right now, but jet’s got his hands clamped over his ears, rocking back and forth in the corner of the cell. the sound of a woman shouting is playing over the intercom speaker in the cell, and the audio comes out muffled on the security footage.

“that’s the audio recording of his mother’s voice, moments before we delivered the shot that finished her off. very impressive audio recording systems on our draculoids’ suits, so we can store the footage and use it as an interrogation tactic.” the director sounds pleased, twirling the remote in her freshly manicured hand. poison turns their head back to the screen. 

jet’s hyperventilating so hard poison thinks he’s gonna pass out, and there’s blood dripping down his face from a cut on his eyebrow, with matching blood on the wall next to him. he’s been bashing his head against the wall, trying to knock himself out so he doesn’t have to hear the sounds of his mother dying. poison’s heart sinks when they realize. 

“it’s amazing how emotions can do that to a person. make them so weak and self destructive. that’s why we aim to eliminate all feelings, all attachment and grief from all citizens in the city. for safety.” she pats poison’s shoulder and clicks the remote again.

this time, it’s ghoul, pacing in his cell. he’s got a hospital gown on, and he’s mumbling something under his breath. he’s holding his arms protectively in front of him, and poison can faintly make out what’s definitely more than a few broken fingers. no doubt a drac stomped on his hand for ghoul’s tendency to say whatever’s on his mind. 

“they had to get rid of his clothing. he was trying to hang himself with his own shirt. once again, brilliant how the human mind just self-destructs in the face of danger.” the director makes an explosion gesture with her hand, and poison resists the urge to start yelling to the witch. 

poison grits his teeth when ghoul looks up at the camera, eyes bloodshot and tired. they’re gonna be sick from watching the way he’s pacing back and forth like a caged animal, greasy, black hair matted to his forehead with sweat. 

“how about we give kobra’s cam a visit?” she says, clicking the remote. kobra’s supposed cell is empty, and sure, the kid may be small, but poison knows that not even kobra can hide in plain sight of those empty white rooms.

“oh, it seems like he must be with staff right now. let’s see, shall we?” she says, and poison silently prays to the witch that kobra somehow managed to escape. no such luck, because she turns the camera on to a different room and kobra’s there. 

it looks like a science lab from the schools in the lobby, yet a lot more high tech. there’s an operating table in the middle of the room, surrounded by men and woman in white coats. their clusters are only broken by trays holding scalpels and syringes. and on the table, in the middle of it all, sits kobra kid. 

kobra’s eyes are glassy and he’s laying perfectly still on the hospital bed. his hair has been messily dyed back to chestnut brown, and poison knows it wasn’t on kobra’s own accord because kobra is so prestigious about his bleach job. they even took his beloved piercings out, and little dots of blood are dried around the holes of his snakebites. 

he seems immune to feeling whatever they’re doing; there’s a scalpel just above his collarbone, slicing him from mid-neck to shoulder. his eyes are focused on an image that one of the doctors is projecting in front of him. 

when kobra begins to recite the words on the projector, his voice is monotone. and with every unnatural-sounding word, poison’s heart sinks further and further in their chest. 

_“better living industries works to keep us safe, i strive to be a model citizen.”_

“you’ve got two choices, party poison. you either give us the information on your rebel allies in the desert and go free, or you spend the rest of your life as a model citizen for us.” the director’s voice snaps them out of their daze.

“i will never do anything for you. ever.” poison snarls, and the door of the cell opens. a cart is wheeled in by two dracs and a doctor. the doctor holds an anesthesia mask, and the director nods. 

“it’s alright, we’ll give you more time to think. and more time for your friends to hurt.” the director says. the anesthesia mask is wrestled over their face, tearing off the scab from where korse shot them. poison knows it’s useless to fight the anesthesia. they breathe in the tainted oxygen from the bitter-smelling mask, hoping to get it over with. they can feel blood from the opened ray-gun wound trickling down their throat. 

they remember one thing before everything fades. the director stands over them, smiling with her pearly whites. she says one sentence, and it’s enough to make poison’s skin crawl.

_“have a better day, party poison.”_

**Author's Note:**

> first time posting a killjoys fic on ao3! i’m an ao3 veteran but haven’t posted anything on here for this fandom yet. i made a new account for specifically kjs stuff and hope to post more on here in the future. hope you enjoyed :)


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